Lawrence Mead Higby

Larry Higby never knew his father, a World War II Navy fighter pilot who had completed two tours of duty in the South Pacific. Six months before Higby was born, his father was killed teaching his squadron night landings in preparation for their return to the Pacific theater.

"I think never knowing my father left a void in my life. Maybe that is why I was always seeking mentors," he says. "I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on my mother's side. They lived near the beach, and they were the ones who taught me how to fish, surf, and ride a bike. My grandfather was a butcher who ran his own meat market. He worked 14 hours a day. He and my grandmother believed in hard work. They taught me the importance of having a strong work ethic."

Following the death of her husband, Higby's mother worked as a secretary to support the family. When Higby was two, she married a returning war veteran, who was a banker and a musician. They lived in Pomona, California, but moved often, usually every two years, to rented houses and apartments. Higby's stepfather had little success either as a banker or musician. "He was a good man but just one of those people who returned from the war and never really found his place," Higby recalled. "For the last 15 years of his life, he worked as a postman."

Higby's parents made it clear to him as a young teenager that he needed to work to help support himself. When he was 14, he mowed lawns and then had a job working as a stock boy in a convenience store. "Financially, my family always lived on the edge," he says. "Because of that, I learned the value of a dollar and became conservative with money."

His family's frequent moves helped Higby develop an outgoing personality. He had a large group of friends, became involved in sports, and enjoyed his studies in school. During his teen years, he participated in student government, which had a positive effect on his future direction.

Higby was able to attend the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) thanks to a scholarship for the orphans of war veterans. He worked his way through school but was often behind in the rent to his fraternity house. When he could, he picked up odd jobs, such as hashing on Sorority Row. But his main income came from his summer job at nearby Disneyland. "I started as an operator for the Jungle Boat Cruise, but eventually I worked on nearly all the rides," he says. "Working at Disneyland was the best summer job imaginable. I worked with outstanding people who came from colleges across the nation. It was like going to school without having to go to class."

He met his future wife, Dee, at Disneyland, where she worked as a multilingual tour guide. They became engaged during his senior year at UCLA and were married two weeks after he graduated. It was also during his senior year that Higby met another important person in his life: Bob Haldeman. The two met while working on activities for the UCLA Alumni Association.

After Higby graduated with a degree in political science in 1967, Haldeman invited him to join J. Walter Thompson, which at the time was the largest advertising agency in the world. Haldeman was the company's West Coast vice president. Higby worked for the agency part time and attended the UCLA Graduate Business School at night. One year later, Haldeman left the agency to become the chief of staff for Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, and he invited Higby to join the campaign as an aide.

"At the time, I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a presidential campaign up close," he says. "I had spent a lot of time in high school and college in student government positions, and I was fascinated with politics. But I honestly thought Nixon would lose, and I would be back in graduate school for the winter quarter."

Higby was wrong, however. After Nixon was elected president, Higby was offered a job in the White House. It meant sacrificing his graduate school degree, but he knew this experience would be an irreplaceable education and opportunity. One of his first assignments was to organize the summer White House in California. He performed the task well and was promoted to be Haldeman's administrative assistant.

"Working in the White House was an unbelievable experience," Higby recalls. "I traveled with the president to China and Russia and on most of his stays at Camp David. At the White House, I learned about policy formation, organizational structure, and how the two must come together to get things done. In 1972, Nixon won re-election by the largest margin ever. Six months later, the Watergate scandal came to light, and the rest of the administration was a tumultuous time. I wasn't caught up in it, although I did give 35 hours of testimony under oath, I was 27 years old at the time; fortunately, a Horatio Alger award recipient, Don Kendall, gave me a chance by offering me a job at PepsiCo. At the time, I wondered if I would even have another career opportunity."

From 1974 to 2004, Higby had a distinguished corporate career that took him through to upper ranks of PepsiCo, the Los Angeles Times-Mirror Company, Unocal, and Apria Healthcare Group, Inc. Looking back over his long and varied career, Higby believes one of the reasons for his success was always being open to new opportunities, chances that were often presented through a mentor.

"I have been fortunate throughout my life to have had a number of good mentors," he says. "In fact, many of my mentors were Horatio Alger Members, such as Roy Ash, Byron Allumbaugh, George Argyros, Ron Simon, and Tom Johnson. Those were people whom I either worked for or with whom I had a professional relationship. In every job I've ever had, I can point to a mentor who helped me do better in that job than I might have done otherwise."

Higby advises young people to seek experience beyond the classroom. "Reach out for mentors and role models, and don't be afraid to talk to them," he says. "And don't be afraid of new career opportunities. Don't limit yourself to just one thing. There are many fascinating fields and unlimited opportunities in the United States. And don't get discouraged. After Watergate, I wondered if I would ever have another chance to do anything. But it was in reality only the beginning of my life."

Another piece of advice Higby has for young Americans is not to worry too much about what they do professionally before the age of 30. "One of the things that made my life so interesting is the fact that I did so many different things," he says. "When I was a college student, I never could've envisioned where I would actually end up. It's been a fascinating ride. Getting an education is crucial because in school you learn how to think, but then it's time to get out in the world and learn the difference between reality and the classroom."

In 1974, Higby was recruited by PepsiCo. He worked his way up to become the brand manager of Mountain Dew, and he helped double that product's sales in only one year. He went on to serve in several vice presidential positions, including vice president of marketing for Pepsi Cola North America. Under his guidance, the company launched the Pepsi Challenge. It was the only time Pepsi passed Coke in sales. "Boy, did I love that," says Higby. "I learned two valuable lessons at PepsiCo. I learned that marketing is an art as well as a science. I also learned strategic planning, how to take an organization apart, figure out how it works, and put it back together. That particular skill allowed me to work in a number of different industries for the balance of my career."

Higby became senior vice president of a PepsiCo subsidiary, Taco Bell, which at the time was way behind its sales projections. He helped return Taco Bell to profitability, and then he left the organization to join Times Mirror, where he initially ran marketing for its cable network operations. Eventually, he became executive vice present of the Los Angeles Times and chairman of the newspaper's Orange County edition. Once again, Higby was responsible for figuring out what problems the paper was having and then implementing changes that led to higher profits.

Higby's next position was president and chief operating officer of Unocal's 76 Products division. He also served as group vice president of Unocal Corp. Nervous about entering a business in which he had no technical knowledge, he remembers telling the company's CEO, "I don't know anything about making gasoline." But the executive looked at Higby and said, "Don't worry, you've got a thousand engineers working for you. They'll figure that out. You figure out how to sell it." When Higby joined Unocal, it had revenues of $5 billion a year and a market value of $1.2 billion. In 1997, Unocal was sold for $2.1 billion, nearly double its value.

In 1998, Higby joined Apria as president and chief operating officer. He became CEO of the company in 2002. As head of America's largest integrated home healthcare provider, he led Apria's strategic direction, overseeing operations, marketing and sales strategies, government relations, human resources, finance functions, and information systems. In 2004, HME News named Higby one of the 10 most influential people in the industry. He took Apria from $900 million in annual sales to $2.2 billion. After selling Apria to Blackstone in 2008, he retired.

Higby has served on the boards of the Automobile Club of Southern California; eHealth; and Herbalife, and the nonprofit boards of the Orange County Performing Arts Center; South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California; New Majority, a Republican nonprofit think tank; MINE Research Institute in Irvine, California; and Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.